Being something about the process by which performances are got ready for the pleasure of the public and the profit of the ticket speculators.

"You see, I've been fishing, too."

"Hello! Only you—"

"Wait! Mr. Leeds, I've told you a dozen times to count five before that entrance!"

"I thought I—"

"Never mind what you thought! Go back! Now!"

"Hello! Only you two here! What's become of—"

"Wait!... Flynn, take this entrance for the sunset cue. Dim your borders and throw in your reds.... Now, Mr. Leeds, once more!"

Doesn't make sense, does it? Yet this is a commonplace passage from an ordinary dress rehearsal. Anybody really connected with theatricals could translate the extract at a glance, but intimate knowledge of the stage, and its language, is gained only by actual experience. Of the method of producing plays, more has been written and less is generally understood than of any other common process. The outsider who devotes an hour to watching a rehearsal is as well qualified to describe that function as you or I, after seeing a ship steam down the bay, would be to pen a treatise on the science of navigation.

Most laymen have a vague idea that theatrical performances spring into being full-fledged, like birds which prestidigitators hatch by the simple expedient of shooting at the cage. If this statement seems far-fetched, you have but to read the stories of the playhouse written by clever men, like O. Henry and Hamlin Garland, whose wide knowledge of most things under the sun does not seem to extend to things under the calcium.

Rehearsals are much more than aimless walking and talking, as navigation is more than the turning of a wheel. Their direction is a fine art, a very fine art, not the least unlike the painting of a miniature, and one must comprehend something of this art to explain or describe it.

There are many points of similarity between a performance and a painting, which must create an impression without reminding the spectator of the brush-strokes which made that impression possible. The preparation of a play is a succession of details. It is astonishing how small a thing can cause the success or failure, if not of the whole work, at least of an incident or an episode. A pause, a movement, an expression, a light or a color may defeat or carry out the intention of the dramatist.

William Gillette's melodrama, "Secret Service", has a scene in which a telegraph operator, dispatching military orders, is shot in the hand. When the piece was given its initial hearing, Mr. Gillette, in the role of the operator, upon receiving the wound (1) bandaged his hand with a handkerchief, (2) picked up his cigar, and (3) went on "sending." There was no applause. The second night the "business" was changed. The operator (1) picked up the cigar, (2) bandaged his hand, and (3) went on "sending." The audience was vociferous in its approval. This particular instance of the importance of trifles is easily explained. That a wounded man's first thought should be to care for the wound is not remarkable, but that his first thought should be of his cigar suggests pluck and intrepidity which the spectators were quick to appreciate. Frequently, however, author and actors experiment for months before finding the thing that makes or mars a desired effect.

The play-goer who believes himself a free agent does not understand the art of the theater. That art being perfect, he restrains his laughter and waits with his applause until the precise moment when the stage director wants him to laugh or applaud. It often happens that a laugh may spoil a dramatic situation, or that applause may not be desirable at a particular time. For example, if an audience is permitted to vent its enthusiasm over some stirring incident just before the end of an act the applause after the act will be appreciably less, and the number of curtain calls will be smaller. It is a simple matter of mechanics to "kill" a laugh or a round of applause, just as, in many cases, the impression made by an actor in a situation may depend, not upon himself, but upon a detail of stage direction.

When two actors have an important dialogue, each wants to stand farther "up stage"—which is to say farther from the footlights—than the other, because the person fartherest "up stage" is most likely to dominate the scene. "It's no use", I once heard William A. Brady say to a veteran, who was rehearsing with a young woman star. "She knows the tricks as well as you do, and she'll back through the wall of the theater before she'll give you that scene!"

The position of the player being of such consequence, it will be seen at once that actors do not, as is commonly believed, roam about the stage at will. In point of fact, they are practically automata, reflecting the brain-pictures of the director and working out his scheme. It is not unusual for the man in charge of a rehearsal to instruct one of his puppets to "take six steps to the right at this speech", or to "come down stage four steps." No person in a performance ever "crosses" another person—that is, passes behind or in front of that other person—without having been told just when and how to do so. That movement which seems least premeditated often has been most carefully planned, and you may be sure that, at the performance you are witnessing, everybody on the stage knows to the fraction of a yard where he or she will be standing at a given moment. Edwin Booth's reply to a novice who inquired where he should go during a long speech—"Wherever you are I'll find you"—would not be possible from a stage director of today.

While this pre-arrangement may appear to the layman to be opposed to any semblance of life and spontanaeity, it is absolutely necessary to the giving of a smooth performance. If actors really "felt their parts" they would be about as dependable as horses that "feel their oats", and the representation in which they took part would soon become utterly chaotic. Fancy the awkwardness of Bassanio, in the trial scene of "The Merchant of Venice", looking around to find Shylock before inquiring: "Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?"

Nor would this uncertainty be the worst effect of such unpreparedness. On the stage every move, every gesture means something; conveys some impression. Thus, in a dialogue in which one character is defying another, a single step backward will produce the effect of cowardice, or at least of weakness and irresolution, in the person who retreats. The whole tension of a scene may be lost if one of the parties to it so much as glances down or reaches out for some necessary article.

In the enactment of "The Traitor", a dramatization of the novel by Thomas Dixon, Jr., we found that a certain passage between the "lead", or hero, and the "heavy", or villain, failed of its intended effect. The hero, John Graham, is brought into court handcuffed, and seated in the prisoners' dock. Steve Hoyle goes to him with a taunt. It was thought veracious, even suggestive of manliness, that Graham, hearing the taunt, should rise angrily, as though prevented only by his bonds from striking his foe. After two weeks of guessing and experimenting, we discovered that this very natural movement, for some reason still inexplicable, gave the impression of weakness. It is minutae like this that must be considered at rehearsal, and taught so carefully that the actor moves, as it were, in a groove, swerving from the determined course only as a needle in a sewing machine swerves in its downward stroke.

Accent and facial expression are planned by the stage director with the same absolutism that marks his attention to manouvre. Few actors can be counted upon to read every line intelligently, and frequently the person in charge must [Pg 229]
[Pg 230]
[Pg 231]stop a rehearsal to point out an underlying thought. "You blur that speech", the director may say to the actor. "You don't define the changes of thought which it implies. See here! Jones says: 'I'll go to her with the whole story.' You listen. Your first emotion is surprise. 'You will?' Suspicion enters your mind. 'Then you——' The suspicion becomes certainty. 'Then you love her, too!'" Thus, more frequently than will be believed by the hero-worshipper, the much admired tone in which some big speech is delivered is the tone of the teacher.

"If actors really 'felt their parts'"

So much, so very much, may depend upon the emphasis given a single word. The art of speaking, however, is not more part and parcel of a perfect performance than the art of listening. The director not only rehearses the manner of giving a sense, but the manner of receiving it. He must note pronunciations, too, and, if there is an odd or foreign name in the play, he must take care that all his people pronounce it alike. The length of pauses, the tempo of comic or serious conversations, the light and shade of the entire representation depend upon his competence.

Drama is the Greek word for action, and so, in a play, what the people do is even more important than what they say. Practically every motion made on the stage, except that of walking, comes under the head of what is known technically as "business." Laymen who believe that mummers act on their own initiative, even "making up" lines as they go along, will be surprised to learn that the manuscript of a workmanlike play contains more "business" than dialogue. The performer picks up a photograph or lights a cigar or toys with a riding whip, not because it has occurred to him to do so, but because the author has written down what he must do, and how and when he must do it, and the stage director has taught him properly to interpret the author.

Here is a page from the "prompt copy" of "Clothes." The unbracketed sentences are dialogue; those in parenthesis are "business":

WEST.

I'm going to marry you in spite of——

(Checks himself suddenly. Gets his hat and brushes it with his sleeve. Laughs a little.)

Pardon me. My temper is a jack-in-the-box. The cover is down again. Goodnight.

(Walks quickly to door L. C., and exits. OLIVIA stands still a moment, then throws herself into chair R. of table, and indulges in a torrent of tears. The bell rings. She sits upright and listens. It rings again. She rises and runs to door L. 2. E. The MAID enters.)

The capital letters—L. C., R., and L. 2. E. are abbreviations of terms that indicate exact spots on the stage. You see, it is not left to the discretion of West by which door he shall leave the room, nor of Olivia into which chair she shall throw herself. This "business" the director works over at rehearsal, elaborating, amplifying, making clear. West is told precisely where he must find his hat, with which arm he must brush it, in what tone he must laugh. If this were a case where a pause would heighten the effect of an entrance, the maid would be informed, as was the mythical Mr. Leeds in my opening paragraphs, how many she must count, which is to say how long she must wait, before entering.

The more experienced an author, the more definite, exhaustive and significant his "business." When a play goes into rehearsal, however, there are always places where speech may be exchanged for action, and often, after a dramatist has seen his work on the stage, he is able to cut whole pages, the sense of which is made clear by the appearance, the manner, or the "business" of his people.

There are various kinds of "business", and of different purpose. The old-fashioned stage director used to invent dozens of meaningless things for actors to do, merely to "fill in", or give the appearance of activity. It is related that, when the farce, "It's All Your Fault", was being rehearsed, the man in charge insisted that Charles Dickson, who was supposed to be calling at the room of a friend, should "fill in" a long speech by taking a brush from a bureau drawer and brushing his hair.

"But", protested Mr. Dickson, "I'm simply visiting. I can't use another man's brush."

"Can't help that!" said the director. "There are long speeches here, and you must do something while they are being spoken."

This kind of stage management, however, is no longer general. It is understood now that the best way to make a speech impressive is to stand still and speak it, so that actors are not often given by-play without some good reason.

"Business" may supply "atmosphere", as the spectacle of a man rubbing his ears and blowing on his hands helps create the illusion of intense cold. In the original production of "In the Bishop's Carriage", Will Latimer, impersonated by a very slight young fellow, was supposed to cowe Tom Dorgan, a thug of enormous bulk. The scene never carried conviction, until our stage director hit upon an ingenious bit of "business." He put a telephone on the table that stood between the two men. Dorgan made a movement toward Latimer. Latimer, without flinching or taking his eyes from Dorgan's face, laid his hand on the telephone. That gesture suggested a world of power, the police station within reach, law and society standing back of Latimer. It saved the situation.

Much "business" is obvious and essential, as Voysin's fumbling in his wife's dressing table, in "The Thief", since this fumbling leads to the discovery of the bills upon the purloining of which the play is built. If a small article is to be used importantly in a performance it must be "marked", so that the audience will know what it is and so that it will not seem to have appeared miraculously to fit the occasion. The paper cutter falls off the table in the first act of "The Witching Hour", not by accident, but by carefully thought out design, so that the audience will know where the instrument is and recognize it when Clay Whipple uses it to kill Tom Denning. "Business", in a word, may be the smashing of a door or the picking up of a pin. It is the adornment that makes an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative seem real; that translates mere dialogue into the semblance of every-day life.

Many plays—even most plays—are substantially altered at rehearsal. Dion Boucicault, the great Irish dramatist, said: "Plays aren't written; they are rewritten." It has been proved utterly impossible to judge the effect of a play from the manuscript, to know the merit of any story or episode until it is visualized, translated into action. Some time ago, William Gillette finished a farce, "That Little Affair at Boyd's", to which he had devoted the greater part of a year, and in which, therefore, he must have had considerable faith. Yet, after a week's rehearsal, he dismissed the company engaged and abandoned the idea of producing the piece. The soundness of his judgment was demonstrated later when this farce, re-christened "Ticey", was revived and failed utterly.

When defects manifest themselves at rehearsal, the director does not hesitate to make or to suggest changes, the directness of his course depending upon the standing of his author. No dramatist is a hero to his stage director. Also, while we're parodying maxims, it's a wise author that knows his own play on its first night.

The playwright is quick to learn humility. "Who's that meek-looking chap?" somebody once asked Augustin Daly during the course of a trial performance. "That!" returned Daly. "Oh, that's only the author!" If a director is employed, the writer makes his suggestions through that gentleman. Sometimes the experience of the producer, who brings a fresh mind to the subject, is surer than the instinct of the author, who may easily have lost sense of perspective from long association with his work.

"The Three of Us", a well-known domestic comedy, depends for its chief interest upon a scene in the third act, where Rhy MacChesney pays a midnight visit to Louis Berresford. When the piece was put into rehearsal, the idea was that Berresford, hearing a knock at the door, bade the girl hide herself, which she did, only to be discovered later. George Foster Platt, the stage director, who recently filled that post at the New Theater, objected that this was trite, conventional, unnecessary. "Why shouldn't the young woman tell the truth—that she came on a perfectly legitimate errand, meaning no harm, and that she has nothing to fear—and refuse to hide?" The author adopted his view, a new scene was written, and the play, largely because of the unexpectedness of this turn of affairs, ran for an entire year at the Madison Square.

The knowledge of the stage director must cover the mechanical features of production as well as the literary. It is essential that he should understand the full value of light and scenic effects, and how to produce them. A stage may be, and generally is, illuminated by means of five different devices—from the "borders", which are directly overhead; from calciums, in the balcony or on either side of the stage; from spot lights, which really are calciums whose light is focused upon one spot; from footlights, and from "strips", which are placed wherever light from more remote sources would be obstructed.

The "borders" are long, inverted troughs, stretching from the extreme left of the stage to the extreme right and suspended from the roof of the theater. When it is said that the light coming from the "borders", or, indeed, from anywhere else, may be raised or lowered, may be white or blue or red or amber, or a combination of these colors, reproducing the glow of a lamp, or the first gray glimmer of sunrise, it will be understood that the director has a wide range of effects at his command.

Just as the reading of a line may alter the impression created by an entire passage, so may the least variation in illumination. Comedy scenes, for example, must be played in full light, as sentimental scenes are helped by half lights. If you could witness the second act of "Charley's Aunt" performed in the steel blue of moonlight, and the last act of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in the glare of "full up", you would be amazed at the result.

Color has as subtle an influence. I have seen the people in a play fairly melt into the background of a yellow setting, causing their action to seem vague and illy-defined. Augustus Thomas' "The Harvest Moon" had a scene in which the same subject matter was repeated successively in different settings. Unless you had witnessed this performance, you would hardly believe how wholly unlike were the impressions produced. Costumes and music have an equal portence, and both call for the exercise of nice discretion.

The personality of the stage director, and his manner at rehearsal, are vital considerations. In acting, more than in any other art, the feeling of the artist reaches through his work. Everyone who has watched rehearsals has come to the conclusion, at one time or another, that actors are something less than human. As a matter of fact they are simply children, calling for the patience, the forbearance, and the flexibility of view-point necessary in a nursery. Wholly self-centered, having little contact with the outside world, their standards, their emotions, their false valuations make constant difficulties for the man who has to play upon them as upon a piano.

The dramatic instinct and the egregious ego form a provoking blend. I have known an actress, at a dress rehearsal, the night before the public performance of a play, to go into violent hysterics, apparently reduced to a nervous wreck by the strain of her work. "Great heavens!" I have said to the director; "she won't be able to appear tomorrow." "Acting, my boy", that gentleman would reply. "Acting for our benefit and her own. She'll be all right in ten minutes." And in ten minutes this same woman, done with her scene, would be advancing most logical reasons why she should have somebody's dressing room and why somebody else should have been given hers. I don't know exactly what temperament is, but most actors think they have it.

Player folk are full of superstitions, and many of these relate to rehearsal. Few actors will speak the "tag", or last line, of a play until its premiere. If that line were spoken the play would fail. Managers are not exempt from similar ideas, a mixture of ignorance and experience. A good final rehearsal is supposed to forecast a bad first performance, and this notion is not without reason, since the people, made sure of themselves, are pretty certain to lose the tension of nervousness. When the actors like a play at rehearsal the manager grows fearful. An actor usually likes best the play in which he has the best part, and that is not invariably the best play.

Small, indeed, is the share of glory that goes to "the power behind the throne." His name adorns no bill-boards, and, on the program, you will find it most frequently among the announcements that the shoes came from Hammersmith's or that the wigs are by Stepner. The manager knows the stage director, though, and respects him, reputation of this kind being more profitable than reputation with the great, careless public.

Some few managers, like David Belasco and Collin Kemper, attend to the staging of their own productions, and, indeed, are most noted for their skill in this work. Many authors, among the number Augustus Thomas, James Forbes and Charles Klein, "put on" their own plays. Then there are "General Stage Directors", like William Seymour or J. C. Huffman, employed at so much per annum by big firms like those of Charles Frohman or the Shuberts. There are also detached directors, who contract to stage a play here or there at sums varying from five hundred to a thousand dollars for each piece. Julian Mitchell, R. H. Burnside and George Marion head the list of men who make a specialty of producing musical comedy, which is a field in itself. A broad distinction exists between the stage director and the stage manager, the province of the latter being only to carry out the plans of the former.

A dramatic composition is rehearsed from two to four weeks, the rehearsals usually lasting from ten o'clock in the morning until five in the evening, with an hour for luncheon. The play being finished and accepted, the manager turns the manuscript over to the stage director. This gentleman reads it carefully, realizing possibilities and devising "business." I have known authors to write, and directors to read, with a miniature stage beside them. On this stage, pins would take the place of people, being moved here and there as one situation followed another. The exact location of the characters at every speech was then marked on the manuscript, so that little or no experimenting was necessary at rehearsal.

After he has read the play, the director consults with the author and the manager and the scene painter. He helps the manager decide what actors had best be engaged, and the four determine every detail of the settings to be built and painted. Miniatures of these settings are afterward prepared by the artist and officially O. K.'d. The manager interviews such people as he thinks he may utilize, and comes to terms with them. Actors are not paid for time spent in rehearsal, and, if they prove unsatisfactory before the initial performance, may be dismissed without notice and without recompense.

It is an old custom, now in the way of being revived, to begin operations by reading the play to the company. The first rehearsals may take place in a hall, but, whenever it is possible, a stage is brought into requisition. In the centre of the stage, directly back of the footlights, is the prompt table, at which sit the author, the director, and the stage manager. The players, when they are not at work, lounge in remote corners, leaving the greater portion of the floor space cleared for action. There is no scenery, no furniture, no "properties." Two stools, with a space between them, may stand for Juliet's balcony, for the Rialto Bridge, or merely for a window in a modern apartment house. The casual observer may be puzzled at hearing some Thespian harranguing to four vacant chairs, until it is explained that these four chairs mark the corners of a jury box in which twelve good men and true—same being "supers" yet to be employed—are to try the hero for his life.

In the beginning the actors read lines from their parts. A "part" contains the speeches and "business" of the actor for whom it is intended, with "cues", or the last few words of each speech preceding his, so that he may know when to speak. An extract from the "part" of the Queen in "Hamlet" (Act iii; Scene i) would look something like this:

(You enter L.3.E.)
Did he receive you well?
——free in his reply.
Did you assay him to any pastime?
——he suffers for.
I shall obey you. Etc.

The director shows the actor where he shall stand, and where go, at every speech, and the stage manager notes on the manuscript such "business" as is not already written in it. Also, he sets down memoranda for the raising and "dimming" of lights, the ringing of bells, and other things to be done "off stage."

After a couple of days' rehearsal the players may be told that they must have the lines of the first act committed to memory within a certain time. "Letter perfect on Thursday!" says the director. "Don't forget; I want to hear every 'if, 'and', and 'but' spoken on Thursday!"

So, act by act, the piece is learned, and, within a week, "parts" are put away, and the real work of rehearsal begins. By this time, the "roughing out" of the production has been done, positions have been taught, and the director begins devoting himself to details. Throughout the first fortnight he interrupts frequently; compels the people to go back a dozen times over this scene or that; halts, thinks out trifles, suggests and experiments. When the rehearsals are two-thirds done, however, he and the author break in less and less often. They sit, notebooks in hand, jotting down their observations, which are read aloud to the company at the end of each act.

Meanwhile, the director has attended to several important matters with which the cast has no immediate concern. He has made out a list of "properties", or small articles to be handled in the performance, and has given it to the manager. This list requires care. For example, if matches are needed in the play, it must be ascertained what kind of matches were used at that period, and sulphur, parlor, or "safety" matches must be specified. The manager must also be given lists of furniture and draperies. Later on, a table of "music cues" must be made out for the orchestra, and one of "light cues" for the electrician. The play must be timed, so that it may be known to a minute at what hour the curtain will rise and fall on every act. Generally, a page of typewritten manuscript will occupy a minute, but guess work on this point does not suffice for the director. The players begin to consult him about their costumes, too, and he must take into account the blending of colors, the fashions of the period, and the personal characteristics likely to manifest themselves in attire.

I wish I could make you see a theater during the progress of a rehearsal. The great auditorium is dark and vacant, but for two or three cleaners, who may be sweeping and dusting. White cloths cover the seats, and hang over the facades of the boxes. Through the center of the stage, just behind the footlights, a gas pipe rears itself to a height of five or six feet, and a single jet burns at the end of it. Close beside this pipe is the table I have mentioned, where, with their backs to the auditorium, sit three very busy, very attentive gentlemen. Farther on the stage, which is bare except for a couple of tables and a few chairs, stand two or three actors, attired in street dress, talking in a fashion utterly out of keeping with their every-day appearance. And on all sides are little groups of men and women, who pay no attention to the people in the scene and to whom the people in the scene pay no attention, who laugh and chat in subdued tones until some "cue" brings them into the action.

One day a notice appears on the call board. The company will leave from the Grand Central Station the next morning at 7:20 o'clock. The destination may be Syracuse, N. Y. The hotels in that city are so-and-so. The theater is the [Pg 251]
[Pg 252]
[Pg 253]New Wieting. There will be a dress rehearsal there tomorrow night at 8. "Everybody will please be made up half an hour earlier."